Why We Invested in Layer

Our portfolio company Layer just raised a 6.6M seed round led by Emergence! 

Over the years, we’ve spent a bunch of time thinking about how to disrupt Quickbooks (if such a thing was possible). QuickBooks owns small-business accounting in the US and would be a $100B business on its own. It’s in every accountant’s toolbox, with thousands of integrations and decades of brand equity. QuickBooks does $8B in revenue and is still growing ~20% a year, despite an NPS of just 15.

Over the years, many companies have tried to compete by improving UX and offering cheaper pricing. Some have made progress there (Xero, Wave, etc) but we didn't think that was a large opportunity today.

A real challenger needs 2 things Quickbooks can't match:

1- Native distribution: show up inside the software SMBs already open 10x a day.

2- A 10x experience: automate bookkeeping so it is faster, cheaper, and more accurate.

They won't sell “accounting software” as a standalone product. It will feel like an invisible feature baked into the tools an SMB already relies on, and it will use AI to do the accounting, competing not just with software like Quickbooks but building a much larger business automating the process.

Layer is that company. They've built accounting infrastructure that embeds within the other companies that SMBs rely on. With Layer, these platforms offer accounting and bookkeeping services directly to their customers. Instead of “Export to QuickBooks,” there's a fully native revenue-generating business feature that is mission-critical for the SMB customer.

Vertical SaaS platforms like Toast, Jobber, Moxie and others already own the sales, inventory, and payroll data that powers accounting. By embedding a modern ledger and AI-powered bookkeeping inside those platforms they:

• Meet owners in the software they open every day. No new log-ins or training.
• Eliminate exports and double entry. Data flows straight from the source into the books.
• Give real-time insight. Profitability shows up in the same dashboard they already trust.
• Drive zero-CAC adoption. A toggle in the platform activates accounting, and Layer has seen up to 40% of merchants convert in the first few months!
• Put bookkeeping on autopilot. AI agents categorize transactions, reconcile deposits, and flag anomalies - Layer can fully automate this, and make it faster, cheaper, and more accurate than humans.

With this 10x product, platform partners that embed Layer see a revenue boost and much higher retention.

We’ve seen this dynamic play out with our other embedded fintech companies Unit (embedded banking, capital, bill pay) and Salsa, and accounting is inevitable.

CEO Justin spent years at Square leading Banking and Financial-Data products, where he heard thousands of owners complain about accounting, and knew he had to build this. He teamed up with Daniel, who had built large-scale ledger and reporting systems at Wealthfront.

Since we invested, they’ve shipped a full double-entry ledger, AI-assisted bookkeeping, and drop-in React components that let a partner go live in weeks. They have a bunch of fantastic partners, like Moxie, Nav, Dripos, Carry, and Duet, and serve over 30,000 SMB’s.

So… Layer doesn’t compete with Quickbooks by selling “accounting software.” It solves accounting for SMBs in platforms they already sit in, a far larger opportunity in our opinion.

Our friends at Emergence Capital saw the same opportunity we did and led the $6.6M seed.

If you’re a Vertical Saas, Vertical AI, SMB software, Banking, or Marketplace platform interested in adding accounting and bookkeeping features, reach out to the Layer team today! And, the Layer team is hiring across multiple roles. You can find a link to their job board here.